The Power Of Automation In CAD Design
Jun 13, 2025 |
Repetition is the action of repeating something that has already been done by doing it again and again and… well, you get the point. And if you’re a designer or engineer, you’ve probably spent way too much time doing the same tasks – renaming parts, making small changes to drawings, clicking through menus. It’s boring, it’s time-consuming, and honestly, it takes away from the creative part of your job.
That’s where automation in CAD design comes in. It helps you get rid of the repetitive stuff that you need to sift through so you can focus on what really matters: designing better products, faster.
Automation with IronCAD means:
- You’re faster
- You make fewer mistakes
- You’re more productive
Some Examples of Automation In IronCAD
Let’s break it down and see how it works.
Automation just means using software to do tasks for you—kind of like having a digital assistant. So there might be features that count as automation that you may have overlooked. Thanks to automation, you can do things like:
- Create patterns and duplicate them across a part/assembly. You can also automatically update all instances of a pattern by making a change to a single linked feature.
- Specifically with IronCAD, create entire designs that you can duplicate easily through the use of our catalogs
- Create bulk drawings for parts of assemblies
- Update drawings by just making modifications to parts
- Auto-create annotations
How Automation Helps in Real Life
Let’s say you design custom enclosures for machines, and each one has different dimensions based on customer needs.
Without automation:
- You manually build each enclosure, change each dimension, and create new drawings.
With IronCAD automation:
- You enter a few numbers (like width and height), and the system builds the enclosure for you—along with the drawings!
This saves hours of work every week.
And it’s not just about speed. Automating these tasks means:
- Fewer chances to make mistakes
- Consistent results every time
- More time to solve real design problems
Designers can spend their energy being creative instead of clicking through menus all day.
“To create our diverse automation solutions, we use IRONCAD for all our design work. The program can be used for everything from first layout and customer dialogue to the final detailed drawings,” says Matilda Bastman of Mora Automation and Roboteknik AB.
IronCAD customers like Mora Automation and Roboteknik AB (MARAB) use our automation tools to create their own automation solutions. Want to learn more? Check out this story on Designing Automation Solutions & Robotics!
Going Further: Smarter Automation
Parameters Table
Once you’re comfortable with the basics, you can do more advanced things—like building smart rules into your automations.
Here’s what that means:
- Conditions: “If this part is made of steel, then use these settings.”
- Parameterization: “If I make the height of this enclosure x units, then change the related dimensions according to their respective formulas.”
These tools help you build very flexible and powerful automations.
You could even go into smart assemblies – assemblies with predefined parameters that can be adapted to user needs. For example, a salesperson could receive a customer request for a larger enclosure and the salesperson inputs a few new dimensional parameters and IronCAD adjusts the model, drawings, and pricing automatically!
Get Started: Let Automation Do the Work
Automation isn’t just for big companies with coding teams. With IronCAD, it’s easy to start small and grow over time.
Here’s why it’s worth it:
- Saves you time
- Reduces errors
- Makes your work easier
- Helps you focus on creative design
Ready to try it out? IronCAD has tools to help you get started with automation—no advanced programming needed.
Let IronCAD handle the repetitive stuff—so you can get back to building amazing things.